What Can Energy and Water Do Next?

Last week I participated in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Water Conservation Showcase as part of a panel on tackling the energy-water nexus. Conference attendees overflowed the room, and after our panel presentation, my fellow panelists and I were surrounded by participants voicing concern about the need for water and energy experts to collaborate and solve challenges relating to program design, implementation, and accounting. ACEEE believes the energy and water communities would benefit from new policy frameworks for integrated resource planning, improved tools and metrics to help administrators measure savings, and more peer-to-peer education to help overcome barriers. The interest in joint programs is high and hunger from program implementers for more information and assistance is strong.

In spite of these efforts, more work is needed. National organizations such as ACEEE are just one piece of the puzzle. Many cities and states care passionately about these issues and are interested in organizing programs. If you’d like to be a part of this process, you can start by:

Reaching out to potential partners to begin a dialog about opportunities that exist in your community;

Looking at the programs you already have that help save water or energy and how they can be linked or expanded to address both; and

Thinking creatively about how some of these efforts might be funded initially.

ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency
in Buildings - Papers

Overview / Mission

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, acts as a catalyst to advance energy efficiency policies, programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors. We believe that the United States can harness the full potential of energy efficiency to achieve greater economic prosperity, energy security, and environmental protection for all its people.